The invention disclosed herein relates to electronic presentation and use of maps and other area representations (including geographic and non-geographic areas), and related information, and to the interactive use thereof. The presentations may be provided to users via any type of communications or computer network (including wired and/or wireless), such as an intranet, LAN, WAN or the Internet, an system including interactive television, or may be provided in local storage, e.g., in a client or server hard disk or CD, etc.
Electronically presented maps are available over the Internet. See, for example, www.mapquest.com, www.mapsonus.com, www.maps.expedia.com, www.maps.yahoo.com (accessed through www.yahoo.com), www.maps.com, www.maps.excite.com, (accessed through www.excite.com), www.mapblast.com, and www.zip2.com. Also see U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,974,170, 5,682,525 and 6,148,260. A magnifier feature that facilitates use of an electronically presented map is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,818,455. U.S. Pat. No. 4,800,379 also discloses use of a magnifier in connection with display of an image.